Flash floods have become the nation's number one stormy weather killer in the 1970s. Deaths from flash floods are now approaching 200 each year compared to an average of less than 70 per year during the preceding 30-year period. Losses from flash floods are now nearly 10 times what they were in the 1940s. To combat these escalating losses the National Weather Service (NWS) is expanding its efforts to improve forecasting and warning of flash floods and to improve the public's response to flash flood threats. This paper summarizes the present and planned NWS operational flash flood warning and disaster preparedness programs. FIG. 2. Damage resulting to the John Enos home on Murphy Creek, mi from the Applegate River, near Med ford, Oreg., after a flash flood in January 1974.

Weather is important to all people, including vulnerable populations (those whose circumstances include cognitive processing, hearing, or vision differences; physical disability; homelessness; and other scenarios and factors). Autism spectrum conditions affect information processing and areas of neurological functioning that potentially inhibit the reception of hazardous weather information and are of particular concern for weather messengers. People on the autism spectrum tend to score highly in tests of systemizing, a psychological process that heavily entails attention to detail and revolves around the creation of logical rules to explain things that occur in the world. This article reports the results of three preliminary studies examining weather salience—psychological attention to weather—and its potential relationships with systemizing in autistic people. Initial findings suggest that enhanced weather salience exists among autistic individuals relative to those without the condition and that this may be related to systemizing. These findings reveal some possible strategies for communicating weather to autistic populations and motivate future work on a conceptual model that blends systemizing and chaos theory to better understand weather salience.

Severe local storms (tornadoes, waterspouts, and thunderstorms accompanied by large hail and/or damaging winds) kill more than 100 persons and injure several thousands more, 011 the average, each year. In an attempt to reduce the casualties from these storms the National Weather Service's Severe Local Storm Warning and Disaster Preparedness Programs were developed. This paper gives an overview of these important operational programs.

The hazardous weather terminology used by the National Weather Service has slowly evolved since the beginning of a U.S. weather service in the 1800s. Use of the terms watch and warning has proved to be the most controversial aspect of the present warning system. Very little research has been conducted to determine if the public understands hazardous weather terminology. However, public surveys to date seem to indicate that the general public at least understands the difference between watch and warning. More surveys of the public are needed in order to establish an optimum weather warning system

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